


And Stamp On The Pieces

by Kastaka



Category: Millennium Trilogy - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mikael Blomkvist goes missing in the isolated community of Sachs Habour, it looks like he will need a rescuer - but who will successfully come to his aid?</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Stamp On The Pieces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spatz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spatz/gifts).



> With thanks to vtn for life-saving emergency beta-ing!

It was particularly brought home to Salander that she was not exactly in Södermalm any more when she was ushered into the presence of the Kuptana's Guest House internet terminal, a beige tower-case desktop with a grubby white keyboard and an ancient CRT monitor, its Airware modem balanced optimistically on the edge of the table nearest the window.  
  
She needed to use the computer because her mobile was distinctly uncooperative in these foreign parts - she'd taken the precaution of getting a local phone on her way through mainland Canada, but she'd not been particularly optimistic about her chances of it working out here - and she was still labouring under that awkward promise to Annika, that she would actually respond to her email promptly, like a regular human being.  
  
The device was not too ancient, compared to some of the boxes still valiantly doing their duty under the desks of various acquaintances of hers. But even though she had a fairly unhidden email address for Annika to use, she still felt incredibly self-conscious logging into her mail from a public terminal - worse, a family-owned computer that really might have anything on it.  
  
She almost palmed her USB key into its inviting ports by reflex, only to realise just in time that they were filled with some kind of resin - presumably to defend against this kind of thing - and also that one of her hosts was watching her. Politely, whilst pretending to be busy about the house, but with a distinct eagle eye.  
  
Most likely, they were just watching for the 'bandwidth-hogging activities' she had been sternly advised against (apparently anything more complicated than text was likely to use up their 'bandwidth allocation'), but she wouldn't put it past them to be smart - or suspicious - enough to notice her instinctive attempts to load Asphyxia onto any computer whose owner was incautious enough to leave it in her presence.  
  
There were no urgent missives from her lawyer, so she skim-read a couple of the various newsletters that she had subscribed to in order to fill up this inbox with plausible-sounding messages, thanked her host politely for their forbearance, and logged off again for the evening.  
  
\----  
  
"No. He's going to turn up," Berger insisted.  
  
The mood in the office was always subdued when one of the team was absent; and even more so when one of them was _missing_ \- sufficiently missing that Eriksson was attempting to insist that the police should be notified, over Berger's objections.  
  
Quietly, in the corner, Monika Nilsson hovered nervously over the 'Send' button for a few moments; convinced that no-one was paying her any attention, she pressed it and quickly tabbed away to another window.  
  
In that, she typed an innocuous little note and addressed it to  <annalise.morez@hotmail.com>:  
`  
Have you had any contact with a certain investigative friend of ours?  
`  
It wasn't long before the reply came back. It was one of Figuerola's less secure pseudonymous inboxes, probably automatically forwarding to her work address; misdirection and deniability, not actual security, as that kind of automation would show up in the logs.  
`  
Thought you people had him hidden away in some kind of godforsaken corner of the globe so hadn't worried about him not returning his voicemail. Is it serious?  
`  
She thought for a few moments - and considered consulting the others, maybe Malm, who was always a calming influence. But she didn't want to admit that she had just invited someone else to the party. So she replied on her own.  
`  
Don't know, but our highly strung recent demotee is thinking of calling the police about it.  
`  
Attempting to get on with her latest article, she worriedly flicked back to her own pseudonymous webmail in a 'private browsing' tab from time to time, but no further answers were forthcoming.  
  
Normally with these kind of deadlines she would stay and work late. But no-one in the office today really felt like staying any longer than absolutely necessary.  
  
Maybe she could catch up with some of the peripheral stuff from home - away from Berger's nervous, brooding presence, and from Eriksson's restless anger at being overruled, both of which were making the whole office edgy.  
  
\----  
  
Figuerola switched back to the email and read it again, just to make sure she hadn't been imagining it. Every fibre of her body screamed that she should be getting up from her desk immediately; that he might be in danger, and how could she possibly waste a single moment sitting here in her office, when she could be on her way to save him?  
  
But she knew that it wouldn't do the slightest bit of good. Even if she left immediately, and paid no attention to expense, the earliest she could get to him would be next Monday, with the noon flight from Inuvik. She had all the information up in several browser tabs - potential flight bookings to Canada, to Inuvik, to Sachs Harbour - but the prices at such short notice were wince-inducing.  
  
They had been in bed together when he told her that he was off to the back of beyond for the foreseeable. A most unfair habit of his, she'd thought, springing this kind of news on her when they were all comfortable and sleepy. To him, she guessed, it was just business as usual - and the idea of having to keep the woman he happened to be sleeping with updated on his upcoming work and location must seem rather alien to him, she somewhat uncharitably supposed.  
  
It was practically impossible to concentrate on her work, and she was definitely too distracted to follow up any good leads or call anyone on the telephone, but there was always tidying her hard disk and writing some of the endless, tedious reports that demanded her attention but not much of her intellectual capabilities.  
  
Almost absent-mindedly, she forwarded the email to another address; someone with distinctly more free time, and apparently more disposable income than she could lay claim to with her reasonable, but not excessive, government wage.  
  
She didn't like to think about her potential rivals for his affection, but sometimes, she hoped, they might come in useful - especially if he was going to determinedly continue to get into such scrapes as she had only just rescued him from last time.  
  
By the time she left the office for the weekend, there was no reply to her email. She thought mournfully about the contents of her bank account again, but there was just no budget for foreign extracurricular adventures.  
  
\----  
  
The third time that Lisbeth checked her email on the guest house computer, the family were sufficiently convinced that she was doing exactly as she had claimed that they were content to leave her to her own devices.  
  
Swiftly, she opened up a browser-based gateway to one of the many remote servers she had an account on - there was no question of using programs other than the web browser, but while this was obviously not completely secure, the web portal was clever enough to cover most of its tracks.  
  
She didn't want to spend too much time, as her other email checking sessions had been short, but she could at least check a couple of her other accounts.  
  
Amongst the usual chatter and development updates for the tools she was fond of, an email to a little-used dummy account caught her eye. Something from one of Kalle Blomkvist's little friends, then? She opened it up and read the thread addressed to <annalise.morez@hotmail.com>, with this rather cryptic note prepended:  
`  
Thought you might like to know.  
  
- The sporty one.  
`  
A moment's thought attached the innocuous address to a name. To get this address out of him, it must be one of the people they both knew quite well - and the only two that might possibly answer to 'the sporty one' were Linder and Figuerola. But Linder would have contacted her through the address she used for Milton Security - which left Monica as the obvious culprit.  
  
She sent a terse reply:  
`  
So what do you want to do about it?  
`  
For good measure, she also sent a short missive to one of her friends from Hacker Republic, asking for a few bank details - nothing serious - just enough that she could send Figuerola a little travel subsidy, should she require it.  
  
But she'd already spent more time on this endeavour than her usual perfunctory email check, and at any moment some member of the family might get curious. Any further assistance would have to wait for tomorrow's session.  
  
\----  
  
No matter what Beckman did, despite the endless warm milk with increasingly large doses of something stronger, Berger could not get to sleep.  
  
Oh, she could lie down and close her eyes well enough. But as soon as she did, she was assailed by terrible visions of the worst fates that her mind's eye could serve up, happening in glorious technicolour to Blomkvist, off in the northern wastes.  
  
She was determined not to resort to sleeping pills. Her husband had got to the stage of buying the things and leaving them by their bedside. He knew that she didn't like the idea, and so he didn't insist, or even draw attention to them. But they were there, nevertheless, and she knew they weren't just to ease his own rest beside her restless body with its constant tossing and turning, clinging onto the vain hope that if she could just find a sufficiently comfortable position, she could drift off into deep and dreamless slumber.  
  
It was all her fault, her treacherous brain informed her, over and over. As if she could stop him when he had a story in his sights. But in theory, she could; as editor-in-chief of _Millenium_ , she had the final say on such excursions - especially when they ate into the budget to the tune of several expensive flights, which she surely could have withheld funds for?  
  
However much nocturnal questioning she put herself through, however, it was clear that there was little that she could do about it from here. Alerting the authorities, especially over international boundaries, would probably destroy any hope of him getting anything useful out of the costly journey.  
  
She would just have to trust him; something she was getting worse at during every day, since he had been making a serious attempt at monogamy for Figuerola's sake.  
  
In some ways it would be harder, but in some ways it would be so much easier if it had not been quite so long since they had last shared a bed. Everything had seemed so much simpler then, or at least that is how it looked through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, even though she knew it had been almost as complicated at the time. But despite her love for her steadfast husband, an anchor was missing from her life - possibly, her vengeful mind reminded her, forever - and she felt adrift.  
  
Or maybe that was just the lack of sleep talking, she sternly admonished herself, looking speculatively over at the sleeping pills. Tomorrow night, perhaps.  
  
\----  
  
Restless, Figuerola intently studied the Google Maps overhead view of the small settlement of Sachs Harbour. The airstrip was practically the entire length of the - village? town? Hamlet, apparently. There were a couple of roads heading off to the east and west; eastwards, they petered out into frustrating hints of continuing tracks, but when she zoomed in, hoping for a better view, she hit the usual frustrating wall - "We are sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this location. Try zooming out for a broader look."  
  
She followed the possible tracks up and out until they blended seamlessly into river valleys; the scale of the 'island' that the tiny community clung to the edge of was far greater than she had expected. She'd assumed the National Park was nearby, but in fact they were separated by a greater distance than Stockholm and Gothenburg. She scrolled back over to the western road and followed it along the coastline, squinting at the grainy satellite footage of various waystations; from the aerial view it was impossible to discern their form or purpose.  
  
It was clear that heading out of the settlement without a solid lead or a native guide was going to be a fruitless - and possibly dangerous - endeavour... not that she could even get there in the first place, she scolded herself.  
  
But her bed seemed so uninviting and cold. She had been fine with it when he was just off on business, but desperately needed his reassurance now that his office staff were worried about him, however irrational their concerns might be. It looked pretty isolated out there. If he'd left the main settlement on someone's trail, it would quite reasonably be several days before he'd be able to check in again.  
  
Her subconscious wasn't believing it for a second, though. She took another look at airline tickets to Edmonton - still ridiculously out of her price range, and that was before even considering subsequent travel. And then an email alert popped in the corner of her screen.  
`  
So what do you want to do about it?  
`  
She didn't immediately recognise the address, but it had the entire rest of the thread attached still, with most of the headers intact. It was very likely that this latest missive had come from Salander. So she dashed off a quick reply, before her conscience could intervene and tell her how busy it was at work and how Edklinth could do without her taking any unscheduled vacation time right now:  
`  
Rescue him, of course.  
`  
She tried not to think about the practicalities, as she hit 'send', but her misgivings began to catch up with her. The part of her that, however much she tried to suppress it, still judged people by appearances was berating her for even thinking of taking money from such a small and young-looking girl, however much more of it Salander might have than her.  
  
And she had precious little vacation time left this year; and most likely, Blomkvist was just fine, and would be irritated that she had even thought about chasing him halfway across the world to 'rescue' him from a situation he had under total control. After all, the one time she had charged out with the cavalry to rescue him from an actual life or death situation, he'd reportedly already got control of the gun and all she'd managed was to take the getaway driver into custody and chauffeur him and his lover to the hospital.  
  
There was no reply to her message for some hours, and eventually she gave up and decided to at least catch a couple of hours' sleep before needing to be up and in the office again.  
  
\----  
  
The woman sat in the wooden chair and gazed out of the heavy, triple-glazed window at the glorious sunlight gleaming off the patchy green grass. In the height of summer, it was quite a pleasant place to be; a little rainy, and she wouldn't want to be out without a coat, but one could reasonably go and sit in the garden.  
  
And, as her husband had remarked once, practically the entire island was their garden; the planes occasionally went overhead, but hardly anyone ventured into the deep interior on the ground.  
  
Cautiously picking its way across the tundra, a sleepy fox was stalking something small, furry and defenceless. The local wildlife had got quite used to the lonely house, sheltering under a fold of rock; she supposed the windows were just like ice, but not so cold. They were careful not to leave out any sources of scraps that might bring in the bears, but occasionally a fox or two would take shelter in what little warmth escaped from their excellent insulation.  
  
She liked the foxes. Maybe, she thought, she should have more pity for their prey, but it was just the cycle of nature, wasn't it? Watching the endless play of the wild creatures made her feel a little less alone.  
  
But no - what ever would he think if he caught her down here, mooning out of the window and moping about her lot? She had come with him entirely on her own initiative, as a completely voluntary arrangement. They both wanted to get away from it all, and out here, they most definitely had; occasionally he would trade with the local fur trappers, and there was a landing site nearby that they could probably call a medical plane to if the radio wasn't on the blink again, but otherwise they saw not a single human being but themselves.  
  
And if she was no longer happy with that - if she thought that he had changed, if he had started drinking more of the foul spirits he continually tinkered with the distillation of, and sometimes sold to the local people - well, it was her own fault, wasn't it?  
  
It usually was her fault, after all; as he regularly reminded her...  
  
\----  
  
It was the height of summer when the two-prop plane touched down at the tiny airstrip, for which Figuerola would have given copious thanks, if she thought there was anyone out there to thank for it.  
  
The money had anonymously landed in her account on the evening of the second day after she had sent that fateful e-mail. No further correspondence had occurred - but it was clear from the amount that she was expected to get on the next plane over. Edklinth had been curious about the 'personal reasons' for which she needed a sudden bout of leave, but he had been polite enough not to insist on knowing.  
  
She hoped that one day she could cease to hide her personal life from those at her workplace - especially given the nature of her work, which was chiefly concerned with the unwrapping of such secrets! But the assignment was still too fresh. Perhaps much later, years perhaps, she could turn 'having kept in touch' into 'discovering feelings later', well out of range from accusations of improprieties in her working relationship.  
  
Of course, she was half-convinced that they must know already - especially Edklinth, whom they had been working with and who was not exactly unobservant; no man in his position could have got there without developing a sixth sense and an eagle eye. But there was a difference, always, between knowing something and being forced into a position where one could not plausibly claim not to have known it, and she would rather not push any of them over that line.  
  
There was only one guest house in 'town', so naturally that was her first stop. The people were friendly and happy to natter about their previous visitors; especially the particularly striking Salander girl, who had apparently accepted one of their relatives' all-terrain-vehicle Nature Tours.  
  
On revealing that she, too, was from Sweden, the family practically fall over themselves to tell her about the 'influx of Swedes' and the 'pleasant, but worried-looking gentleman' who had headed out into the wilderness with nothing but GPS and a hired ATV for company. It would have been more usual for him to head off with a guide, but everyone had assumed he must know what he was doing, they said. But, he didn't appear to be that well-equipped; and whilst it was summer, well, he had better be sure he was not going to meet some of the more exciting animals the island had to offer.  
  
Figuerola realised that she must have seemed like an open book when one of the young lads approached her after dinner and offered the services of a friend of his. Apparently his friend was an excellent tracker and could certainly follow even an exceptional Westerner on an ATV during the pleasantly rainy months of summer; also, he was quite cautious not to give offence to present company, but it was clear what he thought of the relative skill levels involved.  
  
While she was aware of the fairly high probability that anything she obviously wanted would mysteriously be available from 'a friend', and possibly not be quite the gift horse that it looked at first, she agreed to meet this friend of his - after a good night's sleep.  
  
\----  
  
The atmosphere in the office did not get any less tense, and after Eriksson and Berger had a rather intense argument - which leaked awkwardly out of the editorial office, however much the others would rather have pretended it wasn't happening - Monika couldn't contain her secret any longer.  
  
"Erika," she looked up and asked Berger as she emerged from her office. "do you have a moment?"  
  
Erika always had a moment for one of her staff, even if she was already exhausted from the attempt at talking Eriksson down from her ultimatum (get in touch with Blomkvist, or she would be taking matters into her own hands). She ushered Nilsson into the office and closed the door behind them.  
  
"What's up?" she asked, attempting to inject a cheerful note, but ending up sounding rather more weary than she'd intended.  
  
"I'm sorry," began Monika, looking at her seriously. She saw the slightly distant expression on Berger's face as the editor-in-chief began to search through her mental files - probably trying to work out what her young reporter could possibly be apologising for with such a serious expression.  
  
"Spit it out," she encouraged, trying to sound supportive; unfortunately, it came out with more than a touch of 'please tell me that this day can't get any worse'.  
  
"Blomkvist," said Monika all in a rush, immediately setting the scene between them. "Um. After your first, uh, disagreement with Eriksson about him; well, there are other people that we know that care about him too..."  
  
"You called Salander," guessed Berger, flatly. She wasn't sure what to feel about that. It was certainly a sensible thing to do; she'd considered doing it once or twice herself, but she figured that if the girl could help, she already knew; and if she didn't know, she was probably due a rest, and shouldn't be dragged into another crisis without her conscious intention.  
  
"No!" exclaimed Monika, confused and slightly hurt. "I wouldn't involve... I mean, she's... I know she's capable, but... she's been through a lot."  
  
Berger nods, thoughtfully.  
  
"I left a note for Figuerola," admitted Monika. "Well, sent her an email." It was Berger's turn to look confused, and somewhat concerned - although mostly her quizzical expression demonstrated that she couldn't really see Monika being quite so clueless as to blow the poor woman's cover of no longer being involved with any of _Millenium_ 's staff at all. "No, no, not to her work email or anything stupid," clarified Monika, quickly. "She left me an address for - you know - if we needed anything, in the aftermath..."  
  
"Annalise," confirmed Berger. Monika nodded. "And did she reply?"  
  
"She asked if it was serious. I said I didn't know. That's the last I heard of it. But I thought you should..."  
  
"And do you know where she is now?" asked Berger, slightly distant; she was busy re-evaluating the situation, in the light of this new evidence.  
  
"No," apologised Monika. "I could probably..."  
  
"You do that," replied Berger, in a tone that strongly implied that if there was nothing else, she would quite like her office to herself for a moment.  
  
 _That could have gone worse_ , Monika reassured herself, as she got back to her computer and sent another quick email - in case the direct approach worked, before she delved into the many indirect ways to find out if Figuerola had taken a sudden holiday to a certain Canadian destination.  
  
\----  
  
They found his ATV on the third day, parked neatly in the lee of some rocks. It did not look like he had expected to be away from it for long, but the ice built up on the shaded side suggested that it had been at least overnight.  
  
Inspecting the surrounding scrubby grass, the guide made a confirmatory noise and gestured her over. "On foot," he explained, tersely. She hadn't managed to get many words out of him since their first meeting, during which her enthusiastic companion from the guest house had done most of the talking and introduced him as Ukalik.  
  
Later, when she had demonstrated the ability to shut up, handle the ATV passably well, eat real food and generally not act completely like a dumb tourist, he had told her that she should in fact call him Robin.  
  
They abandoned their own vehicle a little distance away. Apparently it wasn't usually a problem to just leave them lying around, as it was very unlikely anyone else would cross your path anywhere that you would consider actually leaving your vehicle. But everything about this was slightly unusual.  
  
Figuerola usually prided herself on moving quietly and carefully, but the tundra’s flat, open expanses of spindly grass and greyish-brown dirt did not really lend themselves to stealth. Most of her experience concerned hiding herself amongst crowds, not out in the countryside, let alone where there were seldom other people to blend in with, especially not of her height and build.  
  
They followed the tracks - Figuerola assumed they were following the tracks, though she couldn't see a difference between one patch of burgeoning green grass pushing its way out of the tundra to soak up the summer rains and the next - for long enough that Robin had started glancing back the way they had come, as if wondering whether they should go and get the ATV after all.  
  
But instead, they came to the side of a lake, at which he paused.  
  
"Two sets," he said, indicating some scuff marks indistinguishable to Figuerola from where the ebb and flow of the lake's shore in the intermittent rainfall had dislodged various small rocks. "These ones have heels... the ones you get on tourist women." Robin's opinion of tourist women was not very high: some of the few words they had exchanged had been on the subject of his approval that Figuerola was unlike the 'tourist women' he had sometimes had the misfortune of escorting, who would complain at every little bump and refuse to be quiet when going past 'bad parts'.  
  
"Hmm," said Figuerola, attempting to keep her imagination from doing overtime. There was no reason to think he had picked up another Cecilia Vanger out here on Banks Island. He was quite capable of meeting and speaking to women without necessarily having sex with them, she reminded herself sternly. If someone was out here in heels, she probably actually needed his help.  
  
It was difficult to keep track of time out here. As in the northern reaches of Sweden, the sun stayed up all day, although it did change position in the sky.  By the time Robin made a gesture that meant, quiet, and headed silently over to the alcove in the shelf of rock, it might well have been quite late.  
  
Figuerola didn't want to look, at first. Robin's face was as inscrutable as ever, locked behind a mask of weather-hewn indifference and cultural distance. But she had to know what had caused him to stop and bid her be quiet, and he was certainly indicating that she should get over there and inspect what he had found.  
  
So, as quietly as she could manage across the slightly frost-rimed grass, she approached and took a look within the natural indentation, sheltered from the wind.  
  
\----  
  
"And then you just left him there?"  
  
Salander's usual flat tone was especially off-putting when she was angry, although she was doing a better job of keeping it under control than Figuerola had thought her capable of. It was clear that she was expecting some kind of excellent explanation as to Figuerola's actions, however, and becoming equally clear to both of them that none was going to be forthcoming.  
  
"I don't know what I was thinking," admitted Figuerola, spreading her hands in a gesture of surrender. Unfortunately, she did know exactly what she had been thinking, and it wasn't pretty, nor particularly rational. Neither the truth nor the lie seemed particularly likely to impress the small but dangerous shadow she had found waiting for her back at Kuptana's.  
  
"You were thinking only of yourself, as usual," said Salander, plainly disgusted.  
  
Figuerola couldn't really argue with that. Robin had obviously been not interested in getting involved, and she just could not bring herself to make some noise, to reach out and shake him, all wrapped up in that travel blanket with _her_.  
  
Whoever _she_ was. She didn't even know that. She was a complete failure as an investigator.  
  
She just knew that if she had woken him up, she would have seen his big blue eyes looking up at her as he explained how they were just curled up so tightly together for warmth - look, how cold the woman must be, out in this weather without a proper coat - and surely she couldn't be mad at him for that?  
  
And she probably wouldn't have been able to stay angry with him; but it would have festered inside her anyway. _Like it is now, you mean?_ she thought sourly, as Salander pointedly turned away and started entering notes on her portable computer again.  
  
Salander's own Nature Tour had not been the most successful endeavour, either; while both she and her guide Maria spoke perfect English, Maria had not reacted very well to the offhand proclamation that Salander didn't really want a Nature Tour at all, but instead would like her to attempt to follow another person through the untracked wilderness for her. Not much of an observer of personal niceties at the best of times, Salander had been quite dismissive when Maria attempted to explain that not every Inuit was born an excellent tracker, and that she could find someone who could provide that service much better for her if they would just turn around and return to the hamlet.  
  
So, once they had returned no longer on speaking terms, news of Salander's poor etiquette had rapidly spread through the small community, and she was having trouble getting any reception above 'cordial' from any member of it, until Figuerola returned.  
  
Which was probably why she had made such an attempt to be patient and understanding at Figuerola's pathetic tale, she figured. But that was over now, and both of them, despite their continued physical proximity, were essentially alone again.  
  
\----  
  
It took a lot less than three days for Robin to return to the place he had recently left, now that he was not having to carefully follow tracks. Fortunately they had not been particularly hidden, but they had still been washed over in places, meaning they had to stop while he cast around for a clue to where the trail continued.  
  
They had left their hiding place and wandered onwards; it was clear from their directionless, curving path that they had no idea where they were. It seemed that they had attempted to head back to the ATV, but had lost the exact location in the endlessly self-similar terrain. Eventually, the woman had ditched the awkward narrow-heeled shoes for a couple of layers of ill-fitting socks, probably belonging to the man.  
  
And now there was another set of tracks, too.  
  
\----  
  
Figuerola hadn't been paying much attention to the urgent conversation in Inuvialuktun - although the halting speech patterns suggested it was being used more to keep the information from outsiders than because everyone involved was really a native speaker - which followed the return of the young man who had introduced her to Robin. She was much more concerned with eating her lunch and attempting to work out what on Earth she was going to do next.  
  
But she couldn't help but notice the occasional anxious looks in her direction, and eventually Masak - or Kevin, as she was sure she'd heard his mother call him - broke away from the group and approached her directly.  
  
"Ukalik's in trouble," he said, bluntly. It was clear that not all of his relatives approved of him involving her in their compatriot's distress, and some of their glares were still following him across the room. "You were last out with him. He called for backup - one of the inland landing sites - he'd never radio in unless there was real trouble. Yeah, the Mounties will get there, but it'll take time to get a bird up, and they're not likely to travel overland with a landing spot right there."  
  
"And I look like a big, strapping woman, and it's my fault anyway, so you want me to help?" concluded Figuerola, for him.  
  
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, awkwardly.  
  
One of the women snapped something in Inuvialuktun, and Kevin looked over at her, but his expression was still stubborn.  
  
"Look," said the woman, striding over to them. "We don't need you because you have muscles, or to be some kind of shining rescuer. We can rescue our own people just fine. In fact, you'll probably get in the way. But we have no idea what we're dealing with. If you can just tell us, then it will save everyone a lot of time and trouble. Otherwise you're riding along. You and yours brought trouble here..."  
  
"I'm coming too," said Salander.  
  
Another Inuvialuktun argument broke out about that; silent as a ghost, Salander was suddenly in the room, having drifted in from the main hallway, and now she was standing there completely unconcerned about anyone's possible misgivings.  
  
"If you want me, we're taking her too," Figuerola said, quickly; hoping that it might be a chance to reconcile herself with the girl. Salander very briefly fixed her with an 'I-don't-need-your-help' glare before resuming her customary indifferent expression.  
  
Maybe not, then.  
  
Kevin nodded his agreement, although he looked slightly skeptical. "Ten minutes. There won't be much space in the ATV. Especially on the way back, if they've lost theirs. But wear enough that you can stay out for a while," he advised.  
  
Figuerola thought for a moment, then turned to Salander.  
  
"Do you have Erika's number?" she asked.  
  
\----  
  
Berger was just putting away the dishes from dinner when her mobile rang. She rushed to it immediately; it was the guest house's number, so she put the plates she was carrying down on a nearby table and snatched it up.  
  
"Hello?" she asked, anxiously.  
  
"Figuerola here," said an all-too-familiar female voice. Well, that confirmed Monika's suspicions, then.  
  
"You have something?" Berger asked, managing to drop about halfway into her professional tone, but not quite keeping the hope and excitement out of the question.  
  
"Not quite," replied Figuerola, mostly sounding hurried. "Look, I've got less than ten minutes before I have to get into an ATV and head off looking for their guy who's gone after him. In a friendly kind of rescuing from the wilderness way," she added quickly, not wanting to panic Berger. "And they're expecting me to know what is going on. So, uh, what can you tell me?"  
  
"About what in particular?" asked Berger, instinctively stalling for time while she tried to get her head around the new information. At least if they were tooling up to go and rescue him from the wilderness, that suggested they had a fairly good reason to expect he was still alive.  
  
"About what he's doing out here," said Figuerola, impatiently. "About what kind of resistance we can expect, if anything. About, I don't know, anything that might give us an edge. I have no idea what we might be dealing with here, and I'm only getting to go on this trip at all because they think I might have some kind of clue."  
  
"Illegal poaching," replied Berger. She might as well give Figuerola a decent briefing, she'd decided; or as much of it as would fit into the few minutes they had, in any case. "Specifically, polar bears. There's a specific quota that can be taken, and you have to have a permit; but the quantities that certain people have been getting lately, something illegal must be happening. We found a couple of the beneficiaries, who were of course terribly shocked that their fashionable new polar bear skin rug might not have come from a legal hunt, and agreed to help us pin it on someone further down the supply chain; hence, Sachs Harbour, which is where some of the suspicious shipments seem to have been coming from."  
  
"Anything more specific? Apparently when he got here, he basically just hired himself a vehicle and headed off into the interior on his own - so he must have had something to go on," pushed Figuerola.  
  
"He had a couple of suppliers to look up. Maybe one of them arranged a meeting out of town, to speak somewhere more private, or to introduce him to their supplier," said Berger. Now it was suddenly sounding less promising again; if he'd agreed to the kind of meeting where they discouraged you from bringing a guide or a bodyguard, he might not have thought as hard as she was thinking now about his chances of coming back from it.  
  
"And I suppose you can't tell me who those suppliers were," sighed Figuerola.  
  
"Sure I can," replied Berger. "The suppliers haven't been sources to me, yet. He was going to see Roger at PolarGrizz Enterprises, and Samantha over at Banks Island Tundra Tours."  
  
There was another, muffled voice in the background. "Got to be off now," said Figuerola. "Sorry." And then, after a pause, maybe considering whether she should say it or not: "Don't worry. We'll get him back. I promise."  
  
The call cut off from the other end. Berger sat down, heavily, on the nearest chair, and stared blankly into the middle distance, until her husband found her there and asked her what was wrong.  
  
\----  
  
"We're lost," said the woman.  
  
"Yes," Blomkvist admitted, finally. "We're lost."  
  
He looked up at the clouded sky. His watch told him that they had been walking for much longer than it had taken him to get out to the lake in the first place, and this time he wasn't even sure that he could retrace his steps.  
  
"We could walk south," he suggested. "It's not a short walk, but I think it's the closest coastline. Then we just have to follow the coast until we find someone."  
  
"And we have enough food and water for that?" she asked.  
  
"I'm still carrying this," he replied, indicating his rifle. "And from the look of the sky, we're not going to have to worry too much about water."  
  
"But how will we cook it?"  
  
"Doesn't seem to hurt the local people to eat it raw," he said, attempting to sound more upbeat about the prospect than he felt.  
  
"So, which way is south?" she asked, trying to inject a note of hope into her voice to match his attempt.  
  
"Well, first I find out..." He looked up into the impenetrable cloud. "...what direction the sun is in," he finished, awkwardly.  
  
"Maybe we should find some shelter nearby, for now," she suggested.  
  
"I think that sounds like an excellent plan," Blomkvist said, ceasing to squint and search fruitlessly for shadows for some sign of the sun's direction.  
  
At least the nearest inland cliff-edge was easier to spot.  
  
\----  
  
"Then he waved his arms, and started yelling at it to come here," the woman told them, in between sobs. It was encouraging progress, to actually get some words out of her.  
  
"And then what?" prompted Figuerola, hoping to keep her talking.  
  
"I didn't stay to watch!" she exclaimed. "He told me to run in the other direction, as soon as it was paying more attention to him. So I did."  
  
"I'm sorry," Robin was saying to Salander, who was standing very still indeed; the only motion was the occasional blinking, more than usual, as if something had got in her eyes. "I could only go after one of them, and I wasn't going to follow that kind of bear tracks, not on my own."  
  
It seemed unlikely that he was going to get any words out of her.  
  
"It's all my fault," sobbed the woman, pausing to blow her nose into a grubby handkerchief thoughtfully provided by Kevin. "One of the servants, he must have noticed; he told me about the meeting, offered to take the real target to the wrong place, let me meet him there instead." She sniffled into the handkerchief. "If I hadn't been so selfish, he'd... he'd..."  
  
"He might be fine," Kevin reassured her. "Bears don't generally chase people that far. Either they're hungry and they eat them right there - and he wouldn't have got away as far as he did - or they're just chasing them away from their den."  
  
"It's a bit far inland for a den," Kapik - or possibly Janet, depending on who you were talking to - pointed out.  A solidly-built lady with a seriously high-powered rifle, she had come along with them as the 'serious backup'.  
  
"Not that far," Kevin insisted. He seemed to be determined not to let any inconvenient facts get in the way of a good reassurance.  
  
"You coming?"  
  
Figuerola looked startled at those words, addressed to her, issuing from Salander's mask-like features. She was about to ask, 'coming where?', when the girl just started walking off into the scrubland.  
  
"Wait!" called Janet. "You can't just walk off, not out here. Take someone..." she looked at Kevin and Robin. Robin had his pack open and was applying various warm fluids, blankets and first aid to the sore-footed and probably slightly hypothermic lady. Kevin hovered nervously, not even carrying a gun; he had a decent modern spear back in the all-terrain vehicle, but that did not seem like an adequate sole armament for potentially confronting a polar bear.  
  
Salander did not seem to show any interest in waiting, so after exchanging a glance, Figuerola - armed with her own borrowed rifle for this expedition - and Janet headed out after her.  
  
\----  
  
Salander hadn't expected it to be too difficult to follow the tracks of an angry bear through rain-softened ground, but there were some rocky areas on the path and sometimes they lasted long enough that she needed to squint at the ground for some time before working out how things had been knocked over by the chase. Sometimes it was Janet or Figuerola who pointed out the tell-tale sign.  
  
Apart from this rudimentary conversation, they walked briskly in silence through the rain. It had started as a light drizzle, shortly after they had left the others, and was beginning to intensify into a miserable soaking. Figuerola kept glancing at Salander as if she wanted to say something motherly and concerned. The girl was wearing an expensive-looking parka, but the hood was down and she seemed to have no particular consideration for the damp getting in; and she didn't exactly have the correct surface area to volume ratio for the Arctic...  
  
All such musings were driven from her mind by the flash of white fur that she spotted, up on a ridge, off to the left.  
  
"Wait," she said. "I saw something. It might just be a fox..."  
  
Janet looked up in the direction she indicated. "We should go and look," she replied. "The last thing we want is to find the thing behind us, and it's unlikely we’ll actually catch up, if it was a long chase."  
  
This news did not cheer either Salander or Figuerola, but as Janet and Figuerola turned off the track and headed over to investigate the ridge, Salander silently followed them up the slope, rather than continuing to forge her own path through the wilderness.  
  
"Ssh," hissed Janet. "There," she breathed, pointing at a loose pile of rocks, above which could be seen just a fringe of white fur.  
  
"What now?" asked Figuerola, at a similar volume.  
  
"I think we have a few bear scalps remaining this summer," deadpanned Janet, "so I can shoot it legally. If you happen to help me, that's all good."  
  
"What if it didn't hurt him?" asked Salander, suddenly. Her voice was not loud, but it was not quite as quiet as the other women, and in that moment of tension and silence it carried excellently.  
  
Janet spun around to glare at her. "So what?" she asked. "It might hurt us, if we give it the chance. So let's not give it one. We can inspect its muzzle later, its stomach maybe, once we've got it safely on the ground."  
  
"Then it won't have hurt anyone," Salander explained, still at a volume that seemed painfully loud from the perspective of hiding from the bear that was just behind the nearby rocks. "So then we hurt it anyway?"  
  
"It's only a bear," insisted Janet, her voice raised a little with annoyance.  
  
Then there was a long, low roar, and the bear put its paws up on the rocks to lift its head above them and look towards the sound of voices: intruders in its domain.  
  
The paws were not the same ghostly white as the fur on its back; but there was plenty of grey-brown mud in the area that it had been running through. Figuerola took aim and waited patiently for the argument to resolve, but Janet already had her gun up, and was firing as if her life depended on it, so Figuerola's training asserted itself and in a moment she was joining her.  
  
\---  
  
While they were firing, Salander slunk away behind them.  
  
So much for letting them notice she was going; so much for company. She should have known that she couldn't trust another person to think first, rather than shooting; a lesson she had learned with a nailgun, in a warehouse, but it appeared that these two had not yet had cause to learn.  
  
She jogged down the trail that the bear had left in its pursuit of him, away from the rapidly fading sounds of gunfire. The mud was slippery underfoot in places, but she placed her feet very precisely, and only skidded - remaining upright throughout - a couple of times.  
  
The rain cut down the otherwise excellent visibility, so when she came across the huddled pile of torn clothes and blood, she almost collided with it.  
  
Gingerly, she knelt down beside him, locating his face amongst the torn remains of his fleece liner - it looked like he had given his actual coat to the woman they had rescued earlier. She took off one of her gloves, and extended her hand awkwardly, holding it under his nose. She was holding her own breath at the same time, not realising it until she felt the slight warmth of his exhalation and let it out.    
  
He was still alive.  
  
But looking at the amount of blood he had lost, possibly not for much longer.  
  
She considered her options. She had a blanket and some rope; she could construct a makeshift sledge, drag him back to the waiting ATV. She was sure she could retrace her steps along the bear tracks, and fairly sure that she could get from there to where they had found the woman; she'd found the bear tracks from where they'd ended up, after all.  
  
Or she could wait for the others - Figuerola and Janet - to catch her up, as they surely would; bandaging anything she could find that was still bleeding in the meantime.  
  
It rankled to even think of relying on the bear-killers, but on the other hand, it looked like the creature had in fact hurt Blomkvist and quite badly - even if it had only been defending its young, this was a long way to chase him to do that. And she knew that one of the first rules of First Aid was not to move the casualty unless you absolutely had to.  
  
Was this what it had felt like, to find her half gone from this world, insensible in a lonely house in Göteborg?  
  
She owed it to him - literally - to be just as competent now as he had been then. She emptied out her pockets of potentially useful equipment; there was a small first aid kit with her supplies, containing some woefully inadequate bandages, some potentially useful antiseptic cream. No duct tape here. She studied his prone form; what was leaking the worst?  
  
Most of the wounds appeared to already be somewhat clotted, and they blurred into each other. If the bear had taken out any arteries, he would have already bled to death by now. She took out a canteen of water and began to carefully pour it over some of the worst affected areas, trying to discern blood-drenched clothing from broken skin. Some more memories of first aid techniques she'd read about came scrolling back through her mind's eye; apply pressure to bleeding wounds; elevate the feet above the head to prevent shock; keep them awake and talking if possible...  
  
Well, he wasn't awake yet, and she was still not sure what parts she could move, so she continued trying to work out which parts were still bleeding. Check the airway. He was breathing through the nose, but was that enough? A diagram of the recovery position starkly imprinted itself behind her eyes, a black and white line drawing with arrows on how to roll the victim into it, but it had stern warnings not to attempt this if she did not know if his spine was injured.  
  
Gradually, the injuries began to resolve themselves. Mostly it seemed there were a couple of major claw swipes, and a dizzyingly huge bite on his side, where the bear had obviously been aiming for his neck, but he had dropped to the ground and tucked his head in just in time.  
  
The bite was the part that was obviously still sluggishly leaking, so she took off her damp parka, examined it appraisingly for a moment, then took off the fleece jacket beneath it and wadded that up; it was much cleaner than the parka, although possibly not clean enough, and the bandages were just not going to cover enough area. She placed it over the worst part, and began to tuck it round and lean on it, gently at first, but then more firmly; she didn't feel like she was covering the whole area with just her hands, so she turned awkwardly on the cold ground beside him and wrapped her arms around him, pushing the fleece against the wound with her torso.  
  
And that, of course, was how Figuerola found them.  
  
\----  
  
After they had examined the bear, and determined that it did in fact have blood on its muzzle and down one clawed forelimb, she asked Janet, "What is it that made you start shooting?"  
  
"It was doing its threat display," she replied, "and anyway, this is not an ordinary polar bear. Now, help me drain the rest of the blood safely, and get it out of the mud."  
  
"Shouldn't we be looking for..." she was about to say 'Blomkvist', but she looked around and noticed at that moment that Salander was no longer with them. "Salander!" she calls. "Lisbeth!"  
  
"What?" said Janet, irritably; but she also looked around, and noticed for herself that their slightly built companion was gone. With an exclamation that was undoubtedly extremely impolite in Inuvialuktun, she dropped the bear immediately. "She might be in actual danger. I think we're allowed to abandon the thing under the circumstances."  
  
"What is it with the carcass, anyway?" asked Figuerola as they headed back to where they had spotted the bear, and followed Salander's boot-prints back to the main set of bear tracks.  
  
"It's illegal to let the fur go to waste," explained Janet succinctly. "But most things are less bad than letting people get themselves killed, even of their own stupidity."  
  
It was an exhausting battle through the mud, following the tracks after Salander; the rain was really getting underway now, and Janet suggested under her breath something else anatomically improbable that the summer rains could do right now.  
  
But eventually they saw the huddled figures, and Salander's discarded parka beside them; and although Figuerola's jealousy wanted her to interpret the tableau differently, she knew the thin girl clamped to his side, in the underlayers of her outdoors gear, was probably saving her boyfriend's life.  
  
"I'll go for help," Janet said immediately, and she fled the scene at a flat-out sprint.  
  
Figuerola picked up the parka, and spread it gently over Salander, who had already started to shiver. Then she looked at the care that had already been applied, and considered attempting to untangle the curled-up Blomkvist enough to put him into some position that would be better for shock, but it was very difficult to ascertain the extent of his injuries in the driving rain. Salander was also essentially responsive, but she suspected she had done as much as she dared by covering her.  
  
She took off her fleece also, and spread it over the rest of Blomkvist's body that the parka wasn't covering, hoping to at least keep him a little warmer and the worst of the rain off; using the parka to prop it up and keep most of it out of direct contact with his injuries.  
  
And then there was nothing to do but stand in the rain, pacing a little to keep warm, and keep an eye out for any dangers until professional help arrived.  
  
\----  
  
The plane that they loaded him into was the Beechcraft King Air 200 that Aklak Air keep ready for medevac for the Beaufort Sea region; it had to land at the landing site that Robin had called the rescue party to, and then the medics had to slog through the mud with the stretcher out to the casualty and back, as the rain was too heavy to risk a landing on untested ground. But it took Blomkvist straight back to Inuvik, where he was decanted into the Regional Hospital.  
  
There was some argument when Salander and Figuerola arrived on the next flight from the island, and insisted on being let in to see him, neither of them being technically related. However, it would take a brave man to stand up to the voice of command that Figuerola saved for asserting temporary authority over awkward officials; especially when accompanied by the subdued but ice-cold demeanour of a concerned Salander. The hospital administrator was not a brave man; or he took pity on them, and on the patient that had been admitted so far from home.  
  
They kept vigil on either side of his bed; not quite a peace, but perhaps a detente.  
  
When they were ushered out for medical procedures, they kept their silence in the waiting room.  Salander went out to acquire a pack of cigarettes and smoke them somewhere that she could use her phone and portable computer in peace, now that they were back in relative civilisation and her phone could provide her with that most ancient form of connectivity: dial-up.  
  
It was enough to get at her most important emails, and to send a terse summary of events to Berger, who she felt some kind of obscure duty to keep up to date:  
`  
Kalle Blomkvist located; currently in Inuvik hospital, outlook probably good, after saving random woman from polar bear attack.  
`  
She thought hard about making further additions. She knew that an ordinary person's message in such a situation would contain a lot more words, if not necessarily more details. Janet had told them that the 'polar bear' was probably at least partially grizzly, and that was why it had chased him so far, as it had been running him off its territory rather than simply protecting its den; but that didn't seem very important.  
  
Her cigarette was done, and she had no idea when they would next be called in. So she sent the message, and dutifully turned off her phone; although she knew she had used a mobile in Sahlgrenska with no detrimental effect, she did not want to do anything which would give the hospital authorities an excuse to throw her out.  
  
Some hours later, Figuerola went out in search of food, and wordlessly presented Salander with a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar on her return.  
  
\----  
  
Berger knew it was still serious, but she couldn't help herself laughing when she picked up Salander's text.  
  
She showed it around the office, still smiling. "Typical," Eriksson said, shaking her head. "I guess you were right, after all."  
  
"He's not out of the woods yet," Berger warned them sternly, causing Monika to double over with laughter.  
  
"Bears? Woods?" she ventured, when none of the others seemed to get it.  
  
But the mood was soon serious again; _Aftonbladet_ had broken the story about illegal polar bear hunting supplying the rich and famous of Stockholm with their fashionable rugs, and now they had plenty of damage control to do with their outraged sources - many of whom blamed them for leaking the information, and considered them to have reneged on their promise to not blame the end consumers for the scandal.  
  
And unless he was going to come home with something particularly exciting, the story that Blomkvist had been working on was well and truly blown; no-one would be interested in polar bears next week, even if he had found the truth behind the supposedly illegal sourcing.  
  
Berger looked unhappily at the accounts. It was going to be difficult to make ends meet this month. She was not looking forward to the talk she was going to have to give Blomkvist...  
  
But the cloud she had been living under had lifted; he was alive, and she was getting to make plans about what would happen on his return.  
  
Even if they were not the pleasant plans she would rather be making - and, if Figuerola had now saved his life from polar bears, might never be making again.  
  
In any case, there was work to be done, and she could lose herself in it for the moment.  
  
\----  
  
"So you want me to lie for you."  
  
As usual, it wasn't a question, it was a statement. As the first words that Salander had spoken since they arrived, however, they caused Figuerola to look up and blink in surprise.  
  
"What do you mean?" she asked, her professional caution snapping back into place over the exhaustion.  
  
"So I can tell him, then?" asked Salander, looking up at her with her head slightly tilted; while still hard to read, her face was unusually expressive - something in the region of 'please make my world make sense again'.  
  
And suddenly Figuerola understood what Salander was asking. Apart from the people of Sachs Harbour, who they had no reason to expect had any interest in speaking to any of them ever again, the only person who knew exactly what Figuerola had done... was Salander.  
  
She had been deliberately keeping two and two from making four in her head, from paying attention to cause and effect, because she wanted to remain sane and functional. After all, she believed that she was essentially the only conscious responsible adult here; while Salander had been legally declared competent, and outstripped her in a number of very specific areas, she still thought that the girl needed her protection.  
  
But now the conclusion was inescapable. If she had not had a completely irrational fit of jealousy; if she had not rejected him, out on the tundra; if she had not secretly hoped he might die, so that she could be free of him, so that her life would stop being so complicated...  
  
Figuerola was a trained field operative. She had more control over herself than to break down in public, and a hospital waiting room was essentially the definition of public, even if it was also a space in which one might reasonably be expected to break down from time to time.  
  
Instead she stood, somewhat uncertainly; not trusting herself to speak loudly, she whispered, "I'm sorry," faintly at Salander. She could feel herself going a little pale. Striding down the corridor on autopilot, with much more confidence than she felt, she found herself a bathroom and locked herself in a cubicle.  
  
Still soundless - because she was still under enough control not to make a scene - she screamed wordlessly at the ceiling. Competing emotions tangled in her mind: incredible self-loathing, anger at the world for her actions having had consequences, anger at Salander for having been there to save his life, gratitude to Robin and Salander both for determinedly going after him when she would have abandoned him entirely.  
  
She raised a fist to beat the wall with, but thought better of it; that would be making a scene, and damaging a foreign government's property besides. Instead she tried to dig her fingernails into the palms of her hands, her fists whitening with exertion, but she kept her fingernails short for practicality's sake and it was nowhere near as satisfying as punching an unyielding surface.  
  
Finally she let out a noise - a defeated grunt of frustration - and slumped down on the toilet seat, sitting with her head in her hands, losing herself in the blackness.  
  
\----  
  
"Ma'am? Are you all right in there?"  
  
The nurse had repeated the question in French and a couple of different Inuit languages before she managed to pull herself out of the depths and answer, with surprisingly little distress in her tone, "Yes, sorry, I'm fine."  
  
"All right then," replied the nurse. "Sorry, but in a hospital you have to check, you know?"  
  
"Certainly," she replied, automatically; or at least, she felt her body do so, somewhere very far distant out in the real world.  
  
"If you're having difficulties," the nurse continued, "we can get you something to help."  
  
She'd thought these were the visitors' toilets; but she supposed some of the patients were mobile, and might use them interchangeably.  
  
"No, no, I'm just a visitor here," she heard herself say. "Thank you all the same, though."  
  
"You're welcome," said the nurse. "Sorry to bother you."  
  
But the spell had been broken. She knew that at some point she was going to have to go out there and face it; face him. Face _her_. She couldn't sit on this toilet for the rest of her life; and despite what she had done, despite the utter disdain she felt for herself right now, she still didn't want to cut that life short. So she would have to deal with it, somehow.  
  
She toyed with idle fantasies of silencing Salander - but she knew that better-resourced people than her had tried, and failed, and she did not rate her chances very highly. A desperate, optimistic part of her mind told her that the girl had practically offered to keep her counsel; but Figuerola did not believe for a moment that any such offer was genuine, or indeed had been made.  
  
Salander had very specifically made a statement about Figuerola's intentions, not about her own. And if there was one thing Figuerola knew about the enigmatic young woman, it was that she always said exactly what she meant - no more and no less.  
  
She considered going and begging for her understanding. For her forbearance. What had Janet said - "most things are less illegal than letting people get themselves killed"? Blomkvist wasn't dead, but he might well have been - and he wasn't out of danger yet, she reminded herself. She didn't know the local law at all well; for all she knew it might _actually_ be illegal here to leave someone to their own resources in the wilderness, if you were not reasonably convinced that they were capable of surviving the experience. Being prosecuted in a foreign country for something like this, it would be the end of her career...  
  
...and letting him know that she put his life in danger - and worse, the life of whatever woman it was that he had been rescuing, who he probably had no dishonourable intentions towards at all - for her own selfish insanity: that would be the end of their relationship. And she wasn't sure which outcome was worse - after all, she'd already put her career in jeopardy to have him, in the first place.  
  
Even if she did manage to hide her guilt - what then?  
  
She knew the knowledge would claw at her from the inside, whatever she did to secure it, however unlikely it was that he would ever discover the truth. Normally she was quite good at compartmentalising her life, but she feared that this clawing, corrosive deed would hollow her out if she let it, leaving her nothing but an empty shell; and that only if the shell itself somehow managed to hold.  
  
No. She was going to have to tell him. She wasn't sure she could explain it, even to herself. But while Salander would maybe never forgive her, she thought he was the forgiving type; maybe he would. And even if he didn't, to lose him was no more than she deserved.  
  
Thus decided, she finally emerged from the toilet cubicle, and briefly splashed water on her face - she had not cried, but the tears that did not fall - they would have been tears of self-pity, mostly, and she wasn't interested in giving herself the luxury - had still left her a little red and puffy around the eyes.  
  
\----  
  
"When he's better."  
  
It was never clear to Figuerola whether Salander would have told them anyway, with her permission or not; she never really wanted to find out, afterwards.  
  
They were waiting in a quiet airport for their flight to Stockholm when Salander gave her that cool, uncompromising look, and she knew it was time.  
  
"Mikael, there's... there's something I have to tell you," she said, nervously.  
  
"Mm?" he asked her, with concern, but also quite a lot of tiredness from the painkillers he was still taking.  
  
"I..." she didn't know how to begin. She trailed off, hopelessly.  
  
Blomkvist reached over, and attempted to take her hands in his, to comfort her; but he stopped when she shied away instinctively.  
  
"What's wrong?" he asked, gently. "It's okay. Whatever you need to say - well, you need to say it."  
  
She was somewhat glad that he hadn't promised to be okay with it.  
  
"Look," she said. "This is going to sound crazy. And that's because it is crazy... because I..." Every time she approached it, her breathing thickened, and she could feel the walls of the world closing in around her. Would he hand her in to the police himself? It was his right to press charges, if there were charges to be pressed, after all. In her own mind, she was already in some provincial Canuck jail - and it was still better than the time she was doing inside her head.  
  
"Come on," he encouraged her. "Spit it out. You wouldn't have started if you didn't want to finish."  
  
He glanced at Salander, wondering if her presence was keeping Figuerola from speaking; he knew they didn't seem to get on, now more than ever. He supposed Salander was not the easiest person in the world to get on with, especially if you didn't really know her all that well.  
  
She had been still and silent, but with a parting glare at Figuerola - there was definitely something going on there, as that was a full-on, defiant, 'you will do this right or I will end you' look - she got up and left the small seating area, leaving them alone with each other.  
  
Figuerola made a small, defeated kind of noise.  
  
"I almost killed you," she finally got out, all in a rush. "And I don't know why, or I do know why, but it's stupid, the most stupid thing I have ever done. And I don't know if I even want you to forgive me. Even though I obviously want that. I..."  
  
The sudden gust of words drops back into silence as swiftly as it came, leaving her gazing at him helplessly, on the verge of tears again.  
  
"Could you slow down there a minute?" he asked, and she couldn't help but notice that she shuffled slightly away from her in his seat. But he did not look frightened - more kind of fascinated, like he looked when he was on the trail of a story, or at least an interesting mystery that he was determined to solve. "Almost killed me?" he repeated in a tone of faint, good-natured incredulity, and he smiled at her expectantly.  
  
"It's all my fault," she echoed, from someplace deep and buried under the weight of her admission.  
  
"No, I'm sorry, that won't do at all," he said, turning right round in his seat to look at her better.  
  
He might not have been so sensitive to the phrase, if the woman he had rescued - who had never given him her name - hadn't kept repeating it, over and over, even in her sleep. Someone had convinced her very firmly that everything in the world was her fault -  and now that she had finally taken independent actions, the conviction had just seemed to get worse. It was one of the things that had convinced him, when she'd showed up to the rendezvous instead of his contact from the polar bear trade, to rescue her first and attempt to find out where she had come from later.  
  
"Things are very rarely all one person's fault, in my experience. What's all your fault, do you think?"  
  
"This," she said, vaguely waving at the more visible, more superficial wounds on his right arm. "What happened to you. Everything."  
  
"Why, did you personally hunt over your quota of polar bears?" he said lightly, trying to clear the air a little.  
  
"Well, yes, actually," she was forced to admit, and for a moment his attempt at levity almost made her smile; but then she remembered again, and could not believe she had just been about to grin at his sense of humour. She had no right to that, she reminded herself coldly. "But that's beside the point," she said. "I..." She could feel the choking pressure rising up again, but this time she was determined to push through it. "I could have rescued you earlier." It came out in a hurry again, the words almost falling over each other to escape.  
  
"Well, maybe," he said, mistaking her admission for something far less serious. "But you got there in time. You can't blame yourself for..."  
  
"No, Mikael," she said, deadly serious. "Listen to me. I _could_ have rescued you earlier. Not just a little bit earlier. Not theoretically. I was right there, with Robin, watching you sleep; probably the first night that you lost the ATV."  
  
"Oh," he said; his mouth moving without much thought, just to give him time to absorb the information. "I know this might be a difficult question," he said - carefully, thoughtfully, with one eye on the exits and obviously knowing that he could not actually outrun or out-fight her, and it broke her heart in a whole new way to watch him suddenly cautious of her in that manner - "but - why didn't you, then?"  
  
"Because..." and she looked down, and gripped her seat so hard that she wondered if it would leave marks. "Because I was... it's so irrational, I can barely stand to think of it..."  
  
"You were jealous," said Blomkvist, wonderingly. Like he has opened the door to the final piece of the puzzle, but it has caused him to re-evaluate the entire world. "You saw us together, and you couldn't think of anything else, even though there were several obvious explanations - and I assure you, there was nothing even remotely..."  
  
"I know!" exclaimed Figuerola, her hands springing up from the chair, heading to cover her face; but she forces them down into her lap instead. She has caused this; she deserved this; she would not compound her guilt by being weak, by being emotional, by invoking even the beginnings of his protective instincts, as much as she could avoid it.  
  
"I..." he trailed off for a moment. "I was about to say, I understand," he admitted, smiling ruefully, "but to be honest - and I've always maintained honesty is the root of everything - I don't." He took a long, slow blink to regain his composure, feeling like his face was going to twist itself off with the war between rueful irony and the flashing anger that was raging from his sense of self-preservation.  
  
Figuerola nodded. She kept her hands firmly in her lap, and looked fixedly at them; she did not think that she could stand seeing his face right now.  
  
"But... thank you for telling me," he continued, seriously. "I know you could have easily covered it up, and I'm grateful that you didn't."  
  
"Salander would probably have told you," she heard herself admitting. Now she had started, she couldn't stop.  
  
"You're probably right," he said, "but it still took some strength for you to tell me yourself, didn't it?" He tries to look straight at her, hoping to get some idea of how to proceed, but her eyes are hidden in a downcast gaze. "Now obviously I'm angry. And upset, not only on my account, but on the account of the poor woman that you also consigned to her possible death in the wilderness, who had suffered quite enough already. But I don't want you to think, for a moment, that you should not have told me. Yes?"  
  
She could tell that he desperately wanted her to look up, to meet his eyes, and although she wasn't certain that she could trust herself to contain her selfish despair, she felt it was equally selfish to deny him the opportunity. So she raised her head, weakly, and looked at him.  
  
"Yes," she said, in a kind of choked apology. "I'm... I'm not crying. I don't expect you to understand. I don't expect you to want anything further to do with me..."  
  
"Monica," he smiled, sadly. "If I didn't want anything further to do with you, this would be a lot less difficult to deal with."  
  
Now her head was up, she could see that Salander was hovering awkwardly a few seating units away, wondering if she could come back now. She looked over and nodded very slightly, giving her permission.  
  
For a moment, Salander seemed to be torn between her desire to rejoin them, and her desire to pretend that she hadn't been hovering at all and she certainly didn't need anyone's permission to go anywhere that she chose to. But eventually the former won out, and she stalked back towards the seat she had vacated, putting on a very good act of having just decided for herself that she needed to return to her seat now, rather than this being anything to do with Figuerola's signalling.  
  
"I'm not going to make any decisions now," Blomkvist told Figuerola. "I'll no doubt be busy when I get back, never mind the healing process. And I need some time and some distance to get my head around the whole thing, to tell the truth."  
  
Figuerola nodded. This was the best she could have expected; better than she could have hoped.  
  
Just for an instant; just after that proclamation, and her reaction; she could have sworn that she saw Salander smile, very quietly and privately, to herself.


End file.
